Sickness, however, and wars with the natives were not the only handicaps that engaged the attention of the colony in these years. "At this period the slave-trade was carried on extensively within sight of Monrovia. Fifteen vessels were engaged in it at the same time, almost under the guns of the settlement; and in July of this year a contract was existing for eight hundred slaves to be furnished, in the short space of four months, within eight miles of the cape. Four hundred of these were to be purchased for two American traders."[142] Ashmun attacked the Spaniards engaged in the traffic, and labored generally to break up slave factories. On one occasion he received as many as one hundred and sixteen slaves into the colony as freemen. He also adopted an attitude of justice toward the native Krus. Of special importance was the attack on Trade Town, a stronghold of French and Spanish traders about one hundred miles below Monrovia. Here there were not less than three large factories. On the day of the battle, April 10, there were three hundred and fifty natives on shore under the direction of the traders, but the colonists had the assistance of some American vessels, and a Liberian officer, Captain Barbour, was of outstanding courage and ability. The town was fired after eighty slaves had been surrendered. The flames reached the ammunition of the enemy and over two hundred and fifty casks of gunpowder exploded. By July, however, the traders had built a battery at Trade Town and were prepared to give more trouble. All the same a severe blow had been dealt to their work.
In his report rendered at the close of 1825 Ashmun showed that the settlers were living in neatness and comfort; two chapels had been built, and the militia was well organized, equipped, and disciplined. The need of some place for the temporary housing of immigrants having more and more impressed itself upon the colony, before the end of 1826 a "receptacle" capable of holding one hundred and fifty persons was erected. Ashmun himself served on until 1828, by which time his strength was completely spent. He sailed for America early in the summer and succeeded in reaching New Haven, only to die after a few weeks. No man had given more for the founding of Liberia. The principal street in Monrovia is named after him.
Aside from wars with the natives, the most noteworthy being the Dey-Gola war of 1832, the most important feature of Liberian history in the decade 1828-1838 was the development along the coast of other settlements than Monrovia. These were largely the outgrowth of the activity of local branch organizations of the American Colonization Society, and they were originally supposed to have the oversight of the central organization and of the colony of Monrovia. The circumstances under which they were founded, however, gave them something of a feeling of independence which did much to influence their history. Thus arose, about seventy-five miles farther down the coast, under the auspices especially of the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Grand Bassa settlements at the mouth of the St. John's River, the town Edina being outstanding. Nearly a hundred miles farther south, at the mouth of the Sino River, another colony developed as its most important town Greenville; and as most of the settlers in this vicinity came from Mississippi, their province became known as Mississippi in Africa. A hundred miles farther, on Cape Palmas, just about twenty miles from the Cavalla River marking the boundary of the French possessions, developed the town of Harper in what became known as Maryland in Africa. This colony was even more aloof than others from the parent settlement of the American Colonization Society. When the first colonists arrived at Monrovia in 1831, they were not very cordially received, there being trouble about the allotment of land. They waited for some months for reënforcements and then sailed down the coast to the vicinity of the Cavalla River, where they secured land for their future home and where their distance from the other colonists from America made it all the more easy for them to cultivate their tradition of independence.[143] These four ports are now popularly known as Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Sino, and Cape Palmas; and to them for general prominence might now be added Cape Mount, about fifty miles from Monrovia higher up the coast and just a few miles from the Mano River, which now marks the boundary between Sierra Leone and Liberia. In 1838, on a constitution drawn up by Professor Greenleaf, of Harvard College, was organized the "Commonwealth of Liberia," the government of which was vested in a Board of Directors composed of delegates from the state societies, and which included all the settlements except Maryland. This remote colony, whose seaport is Cape Palmas, did not join with the others until 1857, ten years after Liberia had become an independent republic. When a special company of settlers arrived from Baltimore and formally occupied Cape Palmas (1834), Dr. James Hall was governor and he served in this capacity until 1836, when failing health forced him to return to America. He was succeeded by John B. Russwurm, a young Negro who had come to Liberia in 1829 for the purpose of superintending the system of education. The country, however, was not yet ready for the kind of work he wanted to do, and in course of time he went into politics. He served very efficiently as Governor of Maryland from 1836 to 1851, especially exerting himself to standardize the currency and to stabilize the revenues. Five years after his death Maryland suffered greatly from an attack by the Greboes, twenty-six colonists being killed. An appeal to Monrovia for help led to the sending of a company of men and later to the incorporation of the colony in the Republic.
Of the events of the period special interest attaches to the murder of I.F.C. Finley, Governor of Mississippi in Africa, to whose father, Rev. Robert Finley, the organization of the American Colonization Society had been very largely due. In September, 1838, Governor Finley left his colony to go to Monrovia on business, and making a landing at Bassa Cove, he was robbed and killed by the Krus. This unfortunate murder led to a bitter conflict between the settlers in the vicinity and the natives. This is sometimes known as the Fish War (from being waged around Fishpoint) and did not really cease for a year.
(b) [The Commonwealth of Liberia]
The first governor of the newly formed Commonwealth was Thomas H. Buchanan, a man of singular energy who represented the New York and Pennsylvania societies and who had come in 1836 especially to take charge of the Grand Bassa settlements. Becoming governor in 1838, he found it necessary to proceed vigorously against the slave dealers at Trade Town. He was also victorious in 1840 in a contest with the Gola tribe led by Chief Gatumba. The Golas had defeated the Dey tribe so severely that a mere remnant of the latter had taken refuge with the colonists at Millsburg, a station a few miles up the St. Paul's River. Thus, as happened more than once, a tribal war in time involved the very existence of the new American colonies. Governor Buchanan's victory greatly increased his prestige and made it possible for him to negotiate more and more favorable treaties with the natives. A contest of different sort was that with a Methodist missionary, John Seyes, who held that all goods used by missionaries, including those sold to the natives, should be admitted free of duty. The governor contended that such privilege should be extended only to goods intended for the personal use of missionaries; and the Colonization Society stood behind him in this opinion. As early as 1840 moreover some shadow of future events was cast by trouble made by English traders on the Mano River, the Sierra Leone boundary. Buchanan sent an agent to England to represent him in an inquiry into the matter; but in the midst of his vigorous work he died in 1841. He was the last white man formally under any auspices at the head of Liberian affairs. Happily his period of service had given opportunity and training to an efficient helper, upon whom now the burden fell and of whom it is hardly too much to say that he is the foremost figure in Liberian history.
Joseph Jenkin Roberts was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1809. At the age of twenty, with his widowed mother and younger brothers, he went to Liberia and engaged in trade. In course of time he proved to be a man of unusual tact and graciousness of manner, moving with ease among people of widely different rank. His abilities soon demanded recognition, and he was at the head of the force that defeated Gatumba. As governor he realized the need of cultivating more far-reaching diplomacy than the Commonwealth had yet known. He had the coöperation of the Maryland governor, Russwurm, in such a matter as that of uniform customs duties; and he visited the United States, where he made a very good impression. He soon understood that he had to reckon primarily with the English and the French. England had indeed assumed an attitude of opposition to the slave-trade; but her traders did not scruple to sell rum to slave dealers, and especially were they interested in the palm oil of Liberia. When the Commonwealth sought to impose customs duties, England took the position that as Liberia was not an independent government, she had no right to do so; and the English attitude had some show of strength from the fact that the American Colonization Society, an outside organization, had a veto power over whatever Liberia might do. When in 1845 the Liberian Government seized the Little Ben, an English trading vessel whose captain acted in defiance of the revenue laws, the British in turn seized the John Seyes, belonging to a Liberian named Benson, and sold the vessel for £8000. Liberia appealed to the United States; but the Oregon boundary question as well as slavery had given the American Government problems enough at home; and the Secretary of State, Edward Everett, finally replied to Lord Aberdeen (1845) that America was not "presuming to settle differences arising between Liberian and British subjects, the Liberians being responsible for their own acts." The Colonization Society, powerless to act except through its own government, in January, 1846, resolved that "the time had arrived when it was expedient for the people of the Commonwealth of Liberia to take into their own hands the whole work of self-government including the management of all their foreign relations." Forced to act for herself Liberia called a constitutional convention and on July 26, 1847, issued a Declaration of Independence and adopted the Constitution of the Liberian Republic. In October, Joseph Jenkin Roberts, Governor of the Commonwealth, was elected the first President of the Republic.
It may well be questioned if by 1847 Liberia had developed sufficiently internally to be able to assume the duties and responsibilities of an independent power. There were at the time not more than 4,500 civilized people of American origin in the country; these were largely illiterate and scattered along a coastline more than three hundred miles in length. It is not to be supposed, however, that this consummation had been attained without much yearning and heart-beat and high spiritual fervor. There was something pathetic in the effort of this small company, most of whose members had never seen Africa but for the sake of their race had made their way back to the fatherland. The new seal of the Republic bore the motto: THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE. The flag, modeled on that of the United States, had six red and five white stripes for the eleven signers of the Declaration of Independence, and in the upper corner next to the staff a lone white star in a field of blue. The Declaration itself said in part:
We, the people of the Republic of Liberia, were originally inhabitants of the United States of North America.
In some parts of that country we were debarred by law from all the rights and privileges of men; in other parts public sentiment, more powerful than law, frowned us down.
We were everywhere shut out from all civil office.
We were excluded from all participation in the government.
We were taxed without our consent.
We were compelled to contribute to the resources of a country which gave us no protection.
We were made a separate and distinct class, and against us every avenue of improvement was effectually closed. Strangers from all lands of a color different from ours were preferred before us.
We uttered our complaints, but they were unattended to, or met only by alleging the peculiar institution of the country.
All hope of a favorable change in our country was thus wholly extinguished in our bosom, and we looked with anxiety abroad for some asylum from the deep degradation.
The Western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties, which the God of nature had given us in common with the rest of mankind.